BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

Mouth crusties; cracking, infected, lost toes; high # pinworms; eye infection....
Wiley is an Irian Jaya Captive Bred, We think Wiley is a "she" but that isn't here nor there at this point. Wiley's story starts like this....
Build up of mucus began around mouth and started getting noticeable. I would wipe off excess food (messy eater!) after every meal and occasionally wipe spittle from mouth. I began to notice wiley would "drool" more when she was excited or agitated.
Wiley then began to develop cracked feet and digits. I began to get concerned and started rubbing ointment and silvadine on them occassionally. I changed her beddding from a woodase product to Carefresh in order to discourage splinters and pokes. Alas, the cracking continued and she lost a toe despite my daily care. The cracking continued and I took Wiley to an vet with exotic animal oard certification (Had to travel over an hour to get to her, but Wiley's worth it). Just before the vet trip Wiley lost another toe on her back foot.
Luckily Wiley had just excreted for me while I had her out, so I had a fresh stool specimen, and took that with me to the vet. The Vet of course loved Wiley (she's incredibly loveable) and was very helpful- not at all like some vets who will blindly give ivermectin to a tortoise....She lent me her loupes and showed me some infection around the cracking. She gave me the typical oral antibiotics (abx) and a Nolvasan solution to wipe on mouth crusties and feet.
Wiley is on abx and ointment and is continually prodded and wiped etc. She actually responds very well to the stress- and I changed up her schedule a little bit so instead of feeding her a ig meal every 3 days or so, she got a little meal everyday after her "treatments". However , she refuses to eat anymore chunks of fruit from my hand because I lured her one too many times with fruit in order to check her body and treat her digits or mouth.
The vet called and told me that Wiley's feces had a very high % of pinworms- actually it was higher than their lab value would count, so she recommended giving Panacur for a week. No problem Wiley and I have the procedure down pretty well for giving oral meds- I let her bite on the plastic TB syringe while I giver her the meds, then feed her, and let her run around for awhile. Finally after almost 3 weeks, we have a shed and Wiley looks great! toes and feet have no cracks in new skin, the mouth isn't crusted. Just before I go away for the weekend, my friend and helper noticed Wiley's L eye looked red when she blinked. I thought there was no way she could have a serious problem, her body has just been pumped full of abx. Alas, when I checked her today, Monday her L eye is red the skin around it is red, cracking and inflammed, her eyelid is bloodshot. Her R eye is slightly red as well.
Her UVB is the same mercury vapor wattage- no change, no previous issues and solarmeter reads .12-
Any suggestions? I should upload a pict soon.
Bethany

Sometimes it takes a bit for things to clear up fully,they do a grrat job of hiding illness,so when its noticed its usualky quite advanced,have u had a follow up visit to the vets,sometimes a 2nd round of meds are needed and its good for vet to check if first round has been effective

Did she have a respitory infection to?

I can't be of much help, but I would ditch the carefresh if it were me. Carefesh is extremely dry and dries out everything it touches. While she's ill I'd use paper towels/regular towels, and when she's healthy I would consider a moister substrate like a mulch (cypress or coconut). It could help with the feet issues. Probably won't be much help for the other issues. I wish you the best of luck in getting her in top-notch shape.

I have heard that UV bulbs can cause eye irritation, inflammation, and blindness...google would be a good place to learn more about that (I only do blueys, so have no links myself to share, but have heard about this problem a lot)

SapphireTigress wrote:I have heard that UV bulbs can cause eye irritation, inflammation, and blindness...google would be a good place to learn more about that (I only do blueys, so have no links myself to share, but have heard about this problem a lot)

I use MVB on all of my animals, except my indo frilleds - as well as in the store on as many of the diurnal basking animals that we have in large enough cages to accommodate the heat. The bulbs themselves are fantastic - the catch is that if they are used incorrectly, or positioned incorrectly, you'll end up with problems. They are big, hot lightbulbs, and need a lot of cage to dissipate the heat. The animals also need to be able to get as close or as far away as they want to seek out. Multiple basking areas help.

I would agree with Fatal_S in the recommendation to ditch the carefresh - I used that for my rodents and even they had issues with the dustiness of the stuff. Cypress mulch works well, especially mixed with coconut - the coconut will hold extra moisture once the cypress dries out.

-Jen

hurricanejen wrote:The animals also need to be able to get as close or as far away as they want to seek out. Multiple basking areas help.

I'm with you on that one. Spyro loves his MVB bulb, but when he feels its necessary to get away from it yet still wants to receive heat, he goes under his other heat bulb. I will then find him under his MVB again a few hours later, so I guess he likes to switch it up.